Crooked Ascension
by Mistbender
Summary: As if High School wasn't enough for the reborn Organization, Xemnas is back at his old tricks. Cursing, AkuRoku to come, Matured due to latest chapter.
1. And it starts

Crooked Ascension

Zanna sighed miserably as she trudged into her new school. She was tired of moving around all the time. Her mother blamed her every time they'd had to move, telling her that it was because she was always being so depressed. Zanna never believed her though, and some schools she'd been glad to leave. Like the prep school, bad memories there. Her mother had freaked when she cut her hair short, like boy short, except for her bangs, which she kept in front of her face. She'd been grounded for two months when she'd dyed it purple the first time. Now, she'd dyed it purple so many times that she could swear it was natural now.

Pulling on one of the many straps of her Tripp brand pants, she slid uncaringly late into the only empty seat in her new homeroom. The whole class immediately stilled and silenced, staring at her in amazement. Zanna sighed irritably and rolled her eyes.

"What?" she demanded. Half of the class turned away and started whispering about her, which she ignored. The other half were all giving her evil looks. One of them, a guy with bright red hair and green eyes leaned over to her.

"You better enjoy that seat today. You won't have it tomorrow. You're damn lucky that Isaac isn't here." He hissed at her venomously. Zanna just rolled her eyes and returned to her drawings. Some whispers started behind her, but she ignored them. There was some laughing behind her, and she was poked in the back with a pencil. Glaring out of the corner of her eye, she noted that the perpetrator was a guy with pink hair. She laughed to herself at this, because it made him look like he liked guys. 'I wonder what the deal is with these guys is' she thought to herself.

After homeroom, a chubby freshman ran up to her.

"I can't believe you did that. Are you new or something? No one sits in the seats of those guys." He told her.

"A seat is a seat. If they can't handle that, they'd better get some kind of sense knocked into them." She said with a sneer. The boy stopped still with a look of shock on his face.

"You'll see, don't come crying to us when it happens to you." He called after her before running off. Zanna just rolled her cerulean eyes at him and continued on to creative writing. There was markedly less of the group of obnoxious people in this class; just the one with the dreadlocks and the one with spiky light brown hair. She found a seat well away from them though, because the class wasn't very full. One of them still shot spitballs at her though. She suspected the younger one, with the light brown hair.

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Ditching classes, Kenneth and Thane were discussing Zanna's audacity.

"Isaac is not going to let her do that again. Have you called him?" Kenneth asked.

"Yeah, he just about yelled his head off that some random girl thought it would be ok to sit in his seat. You should've heard it Reno. It was kind of funny." Thane laughed. Kenneth laughed in response.

"I can imagine. Hey, it might actually get his ass out of that library once in a while to have this happen."

"Yeah, right. He's never shown any interest in anything besides those books. I don't even know if he's straight or gay."

"Ah man, don't talk about him like that. I don't care if Isaac is gay, but I sure as hell don't wanna think about it. Ew." Kenneth shuddered.

"Yeah, there's really only room for one of those in the group, right Reno?" Thane laughed. Kenneth shoved him.

"Shut up about it. I sure as hell don't need it broadcast every fucking where. I'd have stupid little noobs trying to get protection from us by trying to hook up with me."

"Like you don't get that from girls anyways?" Thane laughed.

"It's easier to be an ass to them." He shrugged. "But we were talking about this new bitch."

"Right, change of subject, like usual. So what should we do to her? I mean, I already know that Dylan is torturing her with those 'spitwads' he makes."

"What's her next class?"

"Damned if I know, you know that's Isaac's specialty."

"Fuck. Well, at least get the word out to Rupert, Ember, and Bastien. They're the only ones that don't have the same homeroom as us."

"Good thing I have decent drawing skills so that they'll know what she looks like." Thane said, scribbling out a small drawing on a notepad.

"Decent. Yeah right. You know you're damn good." A long pause. "So should we wait until Isaac is here for the serious payback?"

"Definitely. As outraged as he was, you know he's scheming as we speak."

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Isaac sat in his room, rapidly writing down notes in his large journal, which he carried everywhere. It never held class notes, but mostly plots and schemes, and important information for the group. He considered once playing with the girl's heart, but discarded that idea. He had no idea what kind of person she would be interested in to begin with, and even though he was good at playing people like, well, like Bastien played cards, he hated hurting girls. He'd liked a few, but they were always too scared of him. He supposed it was because of the group. They did have Ember in the group, but she was dating Thane and not his type anyways. Part of him wasn't happy that he had to plot against this girl, but he ignored it. He always ignored those feelings, which he had every time he plotted against someone, because it wasn't helpful for the group to have a weakness. Sighing, he sat back from the tome.

"Why do we keep doing this anyways? I mean, I know we're different, but it's not like we're the Organization from years ago. That was lifetimes ago, practically." He said to the empty room. "And if we were" he laughed shortly "I'd tell that Xemnas guy where he could stick it. Freakin' loony, I swear." Laughing once again, he returned to his schemes and plots.

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When the bell rang, Zanna gladly slipped out of class to the restroom. She was completely damp from that idiot's spitballs. Looking in the mirror, she didn't see any paper though. 'How the hell?' she thought, as she wiped herself down irritably with paper towels.

"This sort of shit is why I hate having to switch schools every time mom decides I've been too depressed for her tastes, or whatever it is that makes her move." She grumbled to herself as she walked to algebra class. She hated algebra; it made no sense to her.

Sliding into a seat, she noticed with some annoyance that guy with the dreadlocks was in this class too. He was sitting next to a guy with long black hair in a ponytail, with some white streaks in it. As soon as she sat down, they started whispering to each other. Figuring the new guy to be part of the group that everyone feared, she ignored the two and tried to make sense of the gibberish.

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Over in the science lab, Thane was telling Rupert and Ember about the new girl, and what she'd done. Rupert wanted to slip one of his experimental elixirs in her drink, and Ember wanted to just zap her and have done with it. Thane nixed both of those ideas as too extreme, because it was Isaac that she wronged, and he should have first crack at anything serious.

"Who else hasn't run into her yet? Or she hasn't noticed yet?" Rupert asked.

"Bastien, but I don't know if he'll have any classes with her. Our researcher is out for the day, which is why she was able to pull this shit off." Thane grumbled.

"Ok, listen to this idea. Something to feed more ideas to Isaac. Have Bastien act like he's going to be her friend, get some information out of her. Maybe if she's in the same history class that you have with him, Ember, you could mess with her in that Greek stuff you're taking and he could fake saving her." The trio laughed at the brilliance of the plan. Thane texted Bastien, telling him to meet between periods outside of the band room.

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Zanna just wanted out of class as it was, and those jerks somehow kept blowing her papers and hair around, distracting her. 'Gods, all this just for sitting in someone's seat? What the hell are these guys, the mob or something?' she thought to herself. Jotting down a quick note, she sat it on the edge of the desk, with the label "the guys breaking wind" pointed towards the two dark haired jerks. A gentler gust picked up the note and took it to them, which she planned on.

Devin opened the note and scowled before passing it to Mordechai. The note read '_I don't care what you idiots think you're doing to me, I refuse to apologize for sitting at a desk. You get that Isaac kid to say something to me, and maybe I'll consider it, but you guys ain't getting shit out of me._' Mordechai growled softly and muttered "insolent wench" under his breath. Just as they were about to get up and confront her, the bell rang, and she slipped out of the room.

Zanna spent lunch in the library amongst the stacks. She rarely ate anyway, and figured the group of jerks wouldn't be into books. She did once hear the redhead talking to one of them, asking if they thought she'd be the book type, which was rapidly negated, saying "that wench probably isn't literate enough to spend all day amongst the stacks." Relieved, she took her journal out of her backpack. She wrote a short entry in it describing a few of the members of what she called 'the jerk squad' and left it open for more to be added, since the day wasn't over yet.

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The group was sitting in their unofficial meeting place in front of the band room, brainstorming ways to torment the new girl some more. They had just finished up the finishing touches on the 'Bastien riding to the rescue' plan, when Dimitri spoke up. He rarely did this, so everyone stopped and listened.

"I think, to throw her off, we should give it a rest until Isaac comes back. We are all aware of what he's capable of, so we could have her on her toes until he comes back." The group considered this for a while, before slowly agreeing that it would work best. Devin smirked.

"Calm before the storm. You're a genius, Dimitri. Hell, I ain't afraid to admit that Isaac scares me. Dude can make you do anything he wants you to. I bet if she knew, she'd be running for the hills." The dreadlocked teen said. Dylan smiled and pulled out his guitar. Strumming a few random chords, he threw together a short song.

"Crazy bitch don't wanna try, Crazy bitch gonna cry. Ike's gonna show her a thing or two, Ike's gonna rip her head straight through." Everyone laughed at his song.

"Don't let Isaac hear you call him that though, you know he'd make you think you're a six year old girl for the rest of your life if he heard it." Bastien told the musician. Everyone nodded like it was sage advice from a guru, then broke into laughter again.

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Donal glared annoyedly at his teacher. He knew this stuff well enough already, and much more. He wished they'd just move him up into high school already, since he knew that his minions would be older than he. It always seemed to work that way, he'd get stuck trying to construct his plans for control of the realm on his own until everyone else caught up to speed, or he found them. Of course, being the last to die this last lifetime really put a damper in his plans. He just wished he'd had the chance to destroy the Lexicon and that damned cricket's journal first. He had no idea what Zexion had written in that book, but he had no doubts there were some things in there that he would not like. The young nobody had never shared the tome with anyone, not even his closest . . . they weren't friends, but, allies maybe? Either way, no one had known what was in there aside from he who wrote it. He had to find the book and destroy it. The cricket's journal was already part of school texts, so that was a loss. A voice broke into his thoughts.

"Donal? Could you pay attention to us for once?" Leon asked him. Sighing huffily, he stared indignantly at the man. He could finish his thoughts later, while he plotted to follow the path of that book. He knew that Ais had a younger sister, one that could have married and had a child. That would be where he'd start his search for the Lexicon.

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Zanna sat in the back row of the history class, ignoring the smirks and sly smiles from the blonde girl off to her right. She sat by a blonde guy with a few different piercings in his ear, but he did nothing like the girl was. She figured he must be just a normal student, so she did to him as he was doing to her, ignored him. She was often bored in history classes, so she started doodling random pictures on a scrap piece of paper. One of her doodles became a surly guy with hair in his eyes. Analyzing it, she deemed the drawing cute, and titled it 'Josh'. Just before she slid it into her notebook, she noticed the blonde guy staring at it in amazement, and confusion. He glanced at her once, noting that she'd seen him staring, and turned away. Sighing and writing the guy off as weird, she tucked it into her notebook and headed off to physical education.

Bastien grabbed Ember after history and pulled her off to a side corridor.

"What is your problem?" she hissed. She didn't want to be late for home economics, one of her few classes with Thane.

"That girl, she was doodling in class-" he started when she interrupted.

"So? Not everyone has an all encompassing thrill of the boring dead."

"The drawing looked like Isaac!" he growled at her. Ember's head jerked back in surprise. She blinked a few times in bewilderment.

"Are you sure? Maybe it was just some random guy with that emo hair that Isaac seems to like."

"It had his exact features. It even had his book!" Ember's eyebrows shot upwards at this.

"I'll be sure to tell Thane. You pass word on to Jericho. This chick is getting annoying." She said, heading off to her next class.

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In physical education, Zanna kept trying to tell the teacher that she could not play basketball, but he wouldn't listen.

"But Coach Clayton . . ." Zanna started

"But nothing. You will go out there and play, and because of your impertinence, you can guard Dimitri!." He yelled at her, pointing towards an outrageously tall and muscular brunette. Zanna hung her head and walked over to the guy. Looking up, her eyes hit just above his waistline. Her eyes grew bigger as she slowly looked further and further up. Her jaw was hanging when she finally found his face.

"Boo." Dimitri said softly. Zanna whirled around, only to have Coach Clayton point at the giant again. She wilted visibly and tried to keep up halfheartedly. She knew she had no chance against the bear of a guy, so she figured she could only try enough to convince the coach. Once the period was over, she fled to the showers quickly, avoiding the coach, and the guy she'd been forced to guard. One girl came up to her in the locker room.

"Now you know not to argue with the coach . . . he always uses Dimitri as punishment. Just be glad that you didn't have to play Kenneth. He does . . . things to people. We can't prove it, but we know it's him. He's got something against girls, I swear." She shook her head in resignment, as though she was attracted to the fool.

"Oh trust me, I'd take a failing grade before I play against that ridiculous redhead. He's a fucking ass . . . threatened me for sitting in his friend's seat or some such nonsense." Zanna waved off. The girl's eyes widened to an astounding level.

"You're the girl that sat in Isaac's seat?" she asked as though it was completely taboo.

"Yeah . . . why? What's the big deal? It's just a seat." The girl just shook her head and slowly backed away from her, then fled. Exasperated now, Zanna just got her stuff together and left the locker room, stopping to put some books into her locker before leaving the school. Having taken so long to get her things together, and having a locker at the wrong end of the school, she was nearly the last to leave the campus. The group of jerks were off to the side of the school entrance, talking amongst themselves. She could swear she saw a short burst of flame, but when she looked, it was only the redhead smoking. Turning away from them to walk home, she felt eyes on her back. Looking out of the corner of her eye at the group, she didn't see any of them looking at her. Then the feeling came from her left side. She whipped her head around, to only find the other side of the street empty.

"Get a grip girl, those idiots are getting to you." She muttered to herself.

"Are you sure?" a quiet voice whispered in her ear. Zanna jumped, spinning around to see who it was, only to see nobody there. The jerks were not paying attention to her, but found something hilarious. They seemed to be circled around a person she hadn't seen before, but she couldn't get a clear view of the person. They had silvery blue hair though, and was relatively short, like she was. Sighing and ignoring any other weird occurrences, she stormed her way home.

Throwing her book bag on the floor, Zanna flopped onto her bed, annoyed and irritated that this school seemed to have some sort of gang, and that they hated her.

"Get off that bed and help me unpack, miss oh-so-sorry for yourself." Her mother called from the living room. Zanna sighed and heaved herself up.

"Be right there, I'm just putting my stuff away." She returned. She hated how hindered she was, but she put up with it for fear of being kicked out. It had happened once before, and she was left scared and alone outside for a night at age eleven. Shortly after that, she'd sheared her hair short and dyed it purple. She was grounded for a long time for doing that. It took a few more months after that for her mother to stop caring about the color or length of her hair. She knew she shouldn't think of the woman as her mother, since she made no secret of Zanna being adopted, but she was the only mother she'd ever known. She'd been told that her birth mother had died giving birth to her, and her father had died a few months before. She often wondered who she was, really. Her name was the only thing she had left of her birth family. It was the last thing her mother had said, before dying with her last big push. The healers had tried everything, but the woman was gone. Storing away the memories of being told of her family's fate, she headed down to the living room to unpack her caretaker's knickknacks.

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Donal howled in frustration as he learned that Ais' sister had died in childbirth, and there was no record of where the child had gone. Punching the large heart pillow that his parents had given him when his first word had been hearts, he plotted on how he'd figure out which child had blood ties to Ais. He simply had to get that Lexicon. Even if it was written in some sort of code, he was smart enough to figure it out, having known Zexion for so long, and even before that, Ienzo. He laughed when he heard that the cricket's journal had labeled his minion as 'depressed' or some other such description. Ienzo, and also his nobody Zexion were far from that. They may have both had their faces constantly planted in books, but they were not depressed. Zexion didn't feel anything, being heartless, but Ienzo was talkative, humorous, and always curious. It sometimes irked him, but he could use that to his advantage now. Laughing evilly, he started plotting to lure the current incarnation of Ienzo, because they weren't heartless now that they were reincarnated, to him. He doubted that he would have the Lexicon, but if he did . . . things would get interesting.

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"Wait, repeat that again, Bastien?" Isaac asked as they all sat together in a coffee shop. They had gone to it after Isaac's little trick with Zanna had her storming off in a huff.

"I'm serious, she drew you as accurately as if you'd sat for Thane. She stuck you in some baggy pants and a large black shirt, but even still, I'd recognize my own friend." Bastien explained again.

"What was the pose, and what kind of baggy pants?" Thane asked, pulling out his sketchbook and a pencil. Bastien briefly described the picture and Thane set to drawing.

"That makes no sense. I've never seen that girl before in my life. Although I'm sure the odds are not in favor of coincidence." Isaac looked at Devin for confirmation.

"About three hundred fourteen thousand, eight hundred and ninety two to one, roughly." Devin replied. Bastien shrugged, not sure how to explain the phenomenon. Thane shoved his sketchbook across the table to him, and he nodded.

"That's exactly what she drew, Thane. You amaze me with how accurate you always are." Bastien told the pink-haired artist, as he turned the book to show Isaac. A range of expressions crossed Isaac's face as he looked at the sketch; first puzzlement, then mild recognition, going through confusion back to the usual nonplussed look.

"There's something about this girl that we need to keep an eye on. She knows something, even if she doesn't realize she knows it. We must keep an eye on her at all times. Luckily, at least one of us is in each of her classes, aside from her free period." He jotted down her class schedule and who was in each class. "Zanna, which is the girl's name, is an orphan. She was adopted shortly after her mother died in childbirth." A pause and he pierced each of them with a look, stopping slightly longer on Jericho. "She's related to one of the Organization members of decades ago."

"Oh those moldy oldies, who cares about them?" Ember smirked and attempted to wave the subject away.

"You have an unhealthy interest in Xemnas, that's who, Ember." Thane reminded her. The girl slumped down and glared sideways at her boyfriend. Isaac looked at her.

"Please tell me you wouldn't join that kook."

"No, no." she sighed, then muttered "well maybe" under her breath. Isaac glanced at her again before continuing.

"Anyways, I'll be back in school tomorrow, so you don't have to worry about sitting by the icky girl anymore, Reno." Kenneth glared at his friend. "I'll see what sort of punishment is merited, and if I even need to do anything more to her. Until I decide otherwise, leave everything to me. You'll still need to keep your eyes open to anything she does, and ears to anything she says. Especially if it seems out of place, or is something related to the Organization of the past."

"It still amazes me that we're led by a junior . . . " Rupert muttered under his breath. Isaac shot him a look, and he quieted instantly.

"Isaac . . ." Mordechai started "you don't need to intimidate us, we are your friends." With a sigh, Isaac relaxed.

"I know Mordy . . . it's just this girl has me on edge for some reason." Dimitri silently got up and started kneading the stress out of his small friend's shoulders. "Thank you Dimitri . . . I don't know what's gotten into me lately. It feels like I'm . . . picking up on something about to happen. Something bad." The group nodded, there was a tenseness in the air lately. They couldn't tell what, not even Bastien, but there was definitely something happening.

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A/N - for fans that have been reading this for a while, you may notice the rather sudden inclusion of breaks in the form of a lot of roman numerals and slashes. This was requested by a friend of mine, as she was getting lost in the POV changes. I hope it also helps you guys too.


	2. Just what are they?

The next day Zanna stopped short at the door to her homeroom. There was a guy in the seat that she had sat in the day before. A very attractive guy. Kenneth stood up and got in her face.

"Yeah, told you that you wouldn't have that seat today. Where ya gonna sit now?" he glanced at Isaac and then back to Zanna. "You fucking rip-off!" he yelled, pointing a finger at her face. Breaking focus from the guy with silvery blue hair, she glared fiercely at the redhead.

"Who the fuck are you calling a ripoff? At least I don't get fashion tips from video games!" she sneered back at him

"I knew there was something I hated about you the moment I saw you, you biter. Go get your own look." He growled back

"Biter? Of who?" she looked at Isaac, then back at the redhead "your friend? Shit, I've been rocking this look since I was thirteen. Where'd you get yours? You can't have been born that ugly." Some of the regular classmates laughed at this. Devin silenced them with a look.

"You wish you looked this good. And you might wanna cool your head, who knows how overheated it'll get trying to keep up with me."

"You sure you're not talking about yourself? Didn't sound like you were too thrilled to search the stacks for me yesterday." Kenneth glared at Mordechai, who just shrugged.

"What were you in, the girly crap romance section? It's not like you could actually win a guy over." He scoffed.

"And who would want to win you over, with that eyeliner running down your cheeks?"

"They're birthmarks, bitch!"

"Oh no! I'm scared! He's gonna throw something dumb at me like a flaming Frisbee!" She mocked him more. Isaac turned towards the verbal battle with a look that said 'what did she say?'

"Oh you have no idea who you're dealing with. Believe me, I can make things happen. Things you don't wanna know about." The other classmates had fled to the corner of the room, wondering where the teacher had gone. Little did they know that Isaac had convinced him to leave when Kenneth had gotten up. Zanna sighed and rolled her eyes.

"Yeah? Like what? You gonna burn me with your cigarettes?"

"Oh I'll burn you with more than that, bitch."

"Shouldn't you be off raping little boys, Axel?" She turned and stood with her back to the redhead, who was completely floored. Isaac sat stock still for a moment, processing what she'd just said, then jumped up and grabbed her arm, dragging her to the library bodily.

"What did she call me?" Kenneth asked his friends.

"Who's Axel?" Dylan and Thane asked at the same time.

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Zanna squirmed in the boy's grip, surprised that someone the same size as she would be so insanely strong. She hadn't said a thing to the boy yet, mostly from anger at the redhead, but also because she was rather embarrassed that she was enjoying the boy manhandling her. Once inside the library, he quite nearly threw her into one of the seats. Zanna was breathing hard when he slammed his hands onto the seat's armrests. She jerked back, and two pairs of cerulean eyes met.

"How much do you know about the Organization?" he demanded.

"Orga-what?" she asked, completely confused. "I know the word, but not as a proper noun here."

"Organization Thirteen. Nearly two decades ago they terrorized the worlds. You just called Reno by one of the member's names." His eyes narrowed.

"Never heard of them. And that boy's name is Reno? But anyways, I don't know why I called him that. It just came out or something." Zanna shrugged. Frustrated, Isaac turned and started pacing in irritation. While he was doing this, he also probed her mind just a little. There were some blocks in her subconscious that he couldn't get through, but she truly didn't know anything about the Organization. He sat right there on the floor and slouched in defeat. Zanna wanted to reach out to him, find out why he was so upset, but she always got a little scared and shy around any guy she thought attractive.

"You may as well go back to the homeroom." He mumbled. Zanna got up and took a couple steps before looking back at the boy. Sighing, she kneeled down next to him.

"I'm sorry I couldn't tell you anything. I just haven't gotten to that point yet." She winced for a moment. Patting him on the shoulder gently, she got up again. "Cheer up, okay Zex?" she said before leaving. Isaac stared at her retreating back.

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Jericho looked up as Zanna slid into a seat in the science class. Kenneth was skipping class again, at this rate, he'd never finish high school. Looking around to make sure that nobody noticed him, he slid into the seat next to her, at the two person tables that the class had instead of desks. Zanna noticed him, but ignored the blue haired boy. After a long silence, Jericho leaned over towards her.

"What happened? Did he do something to you?" he whispered.

"Why do you care? You're one of Reno's friends." She returned. Jericho shook his head slowly before responding.

"The look on his face said something was up."

"We just talked. Something about some Organization or something. He got pretty worked up over it. I feel bad that I can't help him out more." She admitted.

"Yeah, he's always going on about them, and how they were nuts, but had some good things going on too. I think he worries too much about them." Zanna just shrugged and copied down the formulae that Yen Sid put up on the board. They returned to doing their class work, until she muttered something about how she was irritated at the coursework.

"Don't let Rupert hear you say that." He laughed.

"Who's that?"

"Oh, you probably haven't met him. He's a senior – long blonde hair, green eyes, total science geek. Cold ass bastard."

"Why are . . . why are you talking to me, instead of being cruel to me like that kid with the spiky brown hair, or the two guys with the black hair? Or Reno?"

"Trust me, if Reno were here, he'd never let me get away with this. He's in this class too, but he's ditching, like always. He's never gonna graduate."

"You didn't answer my question."

"I don't know. I guess if Isaac trusts you enough to be alone with you, then I guess you're ok. By the way, the one with the brown hair is Dylan – he shot spitwads at you, and the two with the black hair are Mordy and Devin. Devin probably blew your stuff everywhere."

"Yes, he did. The jerk." She silently seethed for a moment. "What's with the whole school being scared of you guys anyways? I could understand Reno being kind of a problem, but you're not really that bad."

"I'm worse than you think. But it's a bit . . . difficult to explain." Zanna just shrugged and went back to the drone of the teacher's voice.

"Do you want to know who the others are?" he asked after a while.

"Sure, then I won't go calling people by weird names." She laughed, pulling out a fairly hefty notebook that Jericho stared at.

"Holy crap you're just like Isaac . . ." he trailed off, then shook his head to clear it. "I'll start with the seniors. I've told you about Rupert, then there's Ember, she's our only girl so far. She's got short blond hair, and the shrillest laugh I've ever heard. She's also particularly sadistic."

"I think she's in my history class . . ." she interrupted flatly. Jericho checked a sheet of paper and nodded.

"Anyways, she's Thane's girlfriend. Thane . . . well, you'd know if you met him. He's got pink hair. We don't know why, but he likes it. He's a brilliant artist too."

"He poked me with his pencil my first day here."

"Oh yeah, he does sit behind Isaac in homeroom. Anyways, that's the seniors, then there's the juniors; Dimitri, Isaac, and Devin. Dimitri is huge and unavoidable. Seeing as you're about the same size as Isaac, he's probably twice your height, and three to four times your weight in muscle alone. Isaac you met, and Devin . . . Devin's the one blowing everything around."

"Coach Clayton told me to guard Dimitri in gym yesterday . . . worst day ever there."

"Yeah, Dimitri looks scary, but he's really pretty nice. That brings us to the sophomores. Dylan you know, and probably hate, but once he warms up to you, he's really nice. He's a good musician too. Reno . . . needs no more introduction, I'm sure. Then there's Bastien. He's a business major, excellent at cards. Don't ever play a game with him. He's also got short blond hair like Ember, and quite a lot of piercings."

"Hmmm, I saw someone like that in history. He was pretty quiet, but he stared at one of my drawings." She pulled out the sketch and handed it to Jericho.

"May I?" he asked, picking up a pencil.

"Do what? I don't want you changing my drawing . . . I really like that one."

"No, no, just the name."

"Oh, I guess so." Jericho set to erasing the 'Josh' that she'd put in the corner and started scribbling. He passed it back to her after he finished. She looked at her drawing, saw it unchanged, and then looked at the name Jericho had written in.

"I didn't even know him then! How could I have drawn Isaac?" she said, turning pink. Jericho just shrugged.

"We were baffled too. Thane has a copy of it in his sketchbook."

"How?"

"He's like a human copy machine with art. But anyways, I haven't told you about us freshmen yet. It's basically just me and Mordy. I'm a pretty good debater, but that's my only apparent talent, until the moon comes out, but that's another story. Then there's Mordy. He's brilliant at English, but you'd never guess it by the way he talks. He's just . . . odd. A bit too interested in firearms too, if you ask me."

"Yeah, I'm a freshman too. I just hope my mom doesn't decide to move us yet again. I might actually like it here." She then muttered under her breath "junior, huh? Guess that ruins my chances." Jericho smiled at hearing that, but turned away so she didn't notice. Zanna rested her head on her folded arms and looked nearly miserable. He nudged her shoulder with his.

"Don't give up so soon." He said, before packing up his stuff and leaving as the bell rang.

"Wait . . ." she called after him. "I don't even know your name, dude." She drifted off as she left the classroom.

She walked to her next class, one of her favorites. She figured she'd be waiting for this class to come a lot throughout her stay in this school. Art had always been her favorite subject, since she was always doodling something. She handed her class schedule slip to the teacher, a British woman with brown hair who simply introduced herself as 'Jane'.

"We only have one seat left in class, over there, fourth row, the seat next to the window seat." She directed.

This class, like science, had two person tables instead of desks. She was glad to see this, as she liked room to work. Sitting in the seat, she started pulling out the surplus of art supplies she carried around with her at all times, not noticing her tablemate come up and sit next to her. She barely noticed the sketch she'd done in history yesterday slide out of the book she kept it in and slide towards her tablemate. Stopping, she reached over to retrieve it, when a slender, masculine hand picked it up. She whipped her head around to deliver a sharp retort, but stopped suddenly when she noticed who was sitting next to her. She quickly flipped her hair in front of her rapidly reddening cheeks.

"Did you rename this?" Isaac asked quietly, offering the sketch back.

"Um, no. A guy with blue hair did. He told me everyone's name but his own." Zanna stammered. Isaac thought for a moment.

"Probably Jericho then. He does have science with you. I take it Reno ditched again?" he asked nonchalantly as Zanna stuffed the drawing back into her book.

"Jericho is his name? Yeah, I didn't see Reno in the classroom. The other guy told me that he wouldn't get away with telling me anything if Reno had been there."

"Yeah, Jericho is a good friend, once he likes you. He's good with important messages to be delivered, and informing people of things that they might need to know. He's also a strong debater." Isaac told her. "So what did he tell you about me?"

"He did mention he was good at debate, and mentioned something about the moon, but wouldn't say what. He really didn't mention anything about you, aside that you're a junior." Zanna shrugged, her flush finally wearing away.

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Isaac pondered a while, while Zanna doodled. Her nervousness at being so close to him was, to her mind, still glaringly apparent. He barely noticed though, having more pressing matters on his continuously busy mind. Zanna and Isaac did the work in silence, her being too nervous to speak to him, he having too much on his mind to start a conversation. Every now and then, Zanna would sneak a side glance at him, doing a sketch of his features as a personal side project. She kept this under a book though, lest he find out that she had this interest in him.

When the bell rang, she slid it carefully under her other sketch, that Jericho had renamed. Shouldering her bag, she started to head out to spend another lunch in the library, when Isaac called to her.

"Hey, Zanna." She jumped, not knowing he'd known her name, and flushing slightly at how much she liked the sound of it coming from his mouth.

"You want to spend lunch with us?" he asked.

"I, I really shouldn't. I don't think everyone likes me. I was going to spend it in the library reading anyways." She shrugged, not wanting to reveal that she had no lunch again.

Isaac walked over to where she'd stopped short.

"That's too bad. Maybe another day?" he asked, an easy grin on his face. Zanna nearly melted right there.

"Sure thing." She squeaked out and fled to the library.

Heart racing, she slid into her favorite section of the month, metaphysics and the paranormal. She had been reading up on abilities that real people had, partially because of what Dylan and Devin had done to her, partially because she wanted to find out if she had anything like it herself. She couldn't believe how close she'd been to fainting when he grinned at her. It frightened her and amazed her all at the same time. She'd never felt so drawn to anyone this quickly before. In fact, she felt an odd connection to the whole group, but didn't want to say anything. It seemed that no matter what class she was in, there was always one of the group of eleven people in class with her. She just hoped that her French class would be a little easier on her.

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"I saw what you did to Zanna's sketch, Jericho." Isaac said flatly in the band room. The freshman jumped under Isaac's stern gaze.

"I just wanted to show her, nothing more." He stammered, a little worried that he'd angered the one guy that could scramble his brain with little work.

Silence stretched out for what seemed like nearly twenty minutes, but was only a couple at most.

"Thank you. You gave me a perfect opportunity to get a feel for her personality." The junior slowly smiled.

Jericho let out the breath he was holding, and visibly relaxed. Thane and Ember were off to the far end of the band room, apparently content with making lunch out of each other, they were so absorbed in their make-out session. Dimitri and Devin were sitting by Dylan, who was yet again strumming his guitar. Rupert was helping Bastien with his science notes, and Mordy and Reno were sitting with Jericho and Isaac.

"So, what're you gonna do to her now?" Reno laughed evilly, still not forgiving her for the 'raping young boys' comment, even if she'd called him by another name.

"Nothing, yet. There's something I'm still missing about her. She has those subconscious blocks, which may be hiding why she called you Axel." Isaac said, pondering. He didn't want to mention her calling him 'Zex' just yet.

"You think she's got something to do with this Organization business?" Mordy asked.

"Possibly. Remember, I told you there was a fourteenth member that didn't have a lot of information written about her yet. Just the name Naxzan, her ability, and that she'd died after Saix."

The trio thought for a while, when Mordy's eyes shot a little wider open.

"Hey, you said that the Organization's names were based off of their original names, but anagrammed with an x, right?"

"Yes, why? Have you found something?" Isaac looked up with interest.

Mordy ripped a sheet of notebook paper out of his binder, and wrote down the name Naxzan.

"So we start with the fourteenth member's name, right? Take out the x," he crossed it out "and rearrange the letters." Drawing lines from each letter, he spelled out Zanna's name. Isaac's face paled.

"That could mean anything though. Maybe her mom had a thing for the Organization like Isaac here does." Reno said, slapping his silvery haired friend on the back.

"That's true too. But we can't just ignore that kind of coincidence." Mordy shot to the redhead. The three surrounding Isaac looked up when he suddenly stood.

"I have some reading to do." He said shortly before heading to the library.

"But Isaac" Jericho called after him "next period starts in a couple of minutes."

The shorter junior stopped walking as he heard that. Sighing, he resolved to talk to Zanna later. Perhaps during free period. The group started picking their things up and heading to their classes, Thane and Jericho walking together to the language arts building.

"Why did you distract him from his warpath?" Thane asked.

"I don't know, I just don't get the evil vibe from her that Mordy seems to think she has." Jericho shook his head. Just as they reached the French class, Thane spoke again.

"I don't think she's so bad either. It's just that she messed up on her first day."

Zanna was already seated when Jericho and Thane entered the class. Remembering what Jericho had told her about the pink haired guy, she left a couple of her random doodles out, sort of as a lure to show that she was a decent person. It wasn't much, but it was all that she could think of. Unfortunately, it was Jericho who sat next to her once more, and not Thane as she'd hoped. Partway through class, she nudged the blue haired boy.

"Could you, you know, show those to Thane?" she whispered to him, sliding the folded paper with the doodles in it under a corner of his French book.

"Trying to get on his good side?" he asked, pulling the sheet out and looking at her artwork.

"Kinda, yeah." She replied, trying not to get caught by their teacher.

Jericho nodded, and without such discretion, turned to Thane and talked to him about the drawings and doodles that she had handed him. Zanna marveled that they could get away with such obvious conversation in class. Some time into the conversation, she noticed Thane pull out a high end sketchbook and tear out a sheet from it. He folded this and handed it to Jericho, who shortly after ended the conversation with the pink haired guy.

"He wants you to have this. Says it's not his art, and it's not fair of him to keep it." Jericho told her, blatantly handing her the folded piece of art paper.

Zanna glanced up at the teacher as she took the paper, who did in fact look at her, but ignored the exchange. Feeling somewhat giddy from the response of the teacher, she unfolded the sheet. It was a carbon copy of her drawing she'd done in history yesterday. Astounded, she looked over at the senior. Thane turned to half look at her, smiled a little and winked. Zanna couldn't believe how lucky she was to be included into their group, albeit slowly. She had the feeling Reno would be the last to come around, but that didn't bother her as much as she thought it would. She didn't notice the girl from gym yesterday glaring at her, she was so excited to be part of a group she could finally get along with. She'd been the outcast for so long that she supposed she might very well have been depressed, as her mother called her.

"Hey, earth to Zanna." Jericho called to her quietly, startling her out of her musings.

"Huh? Oh, sorry. What were you saying?"

"Thane got a little silly with one of his drawings, he wanted to show it to you." He grinned, a little evilly.

Zanna looked over at the artist, who handed her another sheet of paper from his sketchbook, across Jericho's desk. She took it, just a little brazenly, due to her last experience with Miss Swann, their French teacher. Opening it, she saw a drawing of herself daydreaming . . . of Isaac. She turned red and semi-glared at the now-laughing Thane.

"Not funny." She told him, tucking the paper into her book.

"Hey, c'mon now, I gave you your art back, now give me mine." He replied.

"As long as none of you take it seriously, fine." She said, pulling it back out of her book.

"Aw, now where's the fun in that?" Thane teased her, taking the paper back and tucking it into the pocket of the sketchbook.

Miss Swann cleared her throat, and the trio turned back to the board. The rest of the class continued in silence, Zanna thinking about what Thane had drawn, Jericho and Thane considering talking to the others about how she wasn't so bad of a person to know.

When the bell rang, Jericho stopped Zanna once more, outside of the classroom.

"Hey, just wanted to let you know, Mordy told us something weird at lunch today, so if Isaac gets a little weird, it's only because of the strange connection that he made." Zanna looked at him oddly.

"What sort of connection?"

"Something to do with the Organization. I'm sure by now you know that it's one of Isaac's pet projects."

"Yeah, but I already told him I don't know anything about them."

"I wish . . . I wish I could tell you what could happen, but we're kind of sworn to secrecy on it." He told her sadly before running off.

Zanna wondered to herself what that was about, then continued into the library for her free period. She wondered why she got a free period at this school, since at her others, only seniors did. Shrugging, she went into her favorite section and pulled out a random book, not noticing that it was about the manifestation of powers in people who became Nobodies. Sitting in one of the comfortable lounging chairs at the back of the library, she opened the book and started reading. She didn't notice Isaac sit in the chair next to her, with a large tome of his own.

"I think we should talk about what you're hiding from us, and possibly yourself." He said, startling her.

Zanna put down the book and looked at the silvery-blue haired boy. Taking in everything from his hairstyle to the color of his eyes, and the arch of his eyebrows, she committed the image to memory for further artistic purposes.

"What am I hiding? I have no idea what you're talking about Isaac."

"There are subconscious blocks in your brain, of course you wouldn't know."

Zanna blinked rapidly, not quite sure she was hearing him correctly, or if she wanted to believe what he was saying.

"Are . . . are you psychic?" she asked incredulously.

"You could say that. But I believe you know something about the Organization, it's just blocked off."

Zanna was starting to get frightened by the strange light in Isaac's cerulean eyes. She wanted to trust him with what he was saying, but the way he was talking scared her, as though he was going to pry open secrets in her brain.

"I can help you remember them, if they're in there." He continued, reaching a hand out to her, but with an eerie smile. Frightened, Zanna grabbed her bag and ran.

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Author's Note: I do not know any facts about the official XIV, and any information in this story about XIV, including the name Naxzan, and what will be revealed as her abilities, are solely from my own imagination and not to be taken as fact.


	3. What are they? What am I?

Zanna dashed out of the gate to the school the moment it opened. Confused and frightened, she didn't register Jericho calling after her, and barely missed being hit by cars as she fled. She didn't even register the tears that streamed down her face, a result of being hurt by Isaac. Slamming the door behind her, she ran upstairs and pulled down the trundle stairs to the attic. It was her safe place in every house they'd lived in since she was a child. Wedging herself between two boxes, she curled into a ball, trying to forget the crazy look in Isaac's eyes as the tears continued to fall, unnoticed.

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Jericho looked over his shoulder as Isaac walked up.

"What happened to Zanna?" he asked the older boy. Isaac closed his eyes, clearing his mind from the fog it had been in.

"We were talking. I tried talking to her about what might be hidden from her in her own mind, but . . . she ran."

Jericho looked at him somewhat sternly.

"Did you do the creepy look?"

"What creepy look do you mean? I wasn't aware I had a creepy look."

"It's this look you get when you want to pick someone's brain apart. Almost like you're telling them to hand over their brain like as if it's a book to be read, cross referenced, edited, and tossed into a random pile of other books." Jericho demonstrated a rather creepy look. Isaac looked taken aback.

"I look like that? That must have been why she ran." Isaac pondered for a moment. "She . . . she looked as though she was about to cry, too."

"You mean you haven't noticed?" Jericho asked, stunned.

"Noticed? What was I supposed to notice, when I have so much on my mind?"

Thane had walked up during their conversation, and placed a hand on Isaac's shoulder at this point.

"Girl's got it bad for you man. Almost as bad as Ember's got it for me." He laughed. Jericho shoved the senior in the shoulder playfully.

"You know you love it Thane." Turning back to Isaac, he continued. "Seriously, she thought she'd have to give you up because you're two grades over her."

Isaac thought this over, and pulled out his large journal to note this down as well. Jericho and Thane both raised their eyebrows at each other, since Isaac only noted down important details in his journal.

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Donal sat at his house, waiting for his parents to sign the release form for the class trip to Destiny Islands High School. It may be his only chance to narrow down who he needed to research for any connection to Ais, and his minions of the last life. He had no idea if he would be able to recognize them immediately, but he figured that there would be some sort of connection that he'd feel between himself and his followers. It had taken a lot of convincing on his part to get Leon to agree to the trip. He did not appreciate the wait of a week to go, but it was for those with stubborn parents that took forever to decide.

"Oh well," he said to the empty dining room, as his parents talked in the living room. "Perhaps by the time this trip happens, the child relative of Ais will have found the Lexicon, then I can force them to give it to me." His orange-gold eyes gleamed evilly.

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"Zanna! Wherever you are, you'd better be unpacking our stuff!" her mother yelled as she came home, startling the girl awake.

Zanna hadn't realized she'd fallen asleep, exhausted from the day. Wiping her face where the tears had dried, she opened the box nearest her.

"I'm in the attic, going through boxes." She called down to the woman.

Hearing no response, she continued looking through the box. It was one of the boxes that her mother had said came with her. There were no pictures to identify her birth parents by, and at the bottom was a large, dusty tome. It was black, trimmed with what looked like silver, and strange writing on the front. There was also a strange, three pointed design above the writing. Picking it up, she noted the strange feeling that came from it. It almost hummed with power. Dusting it off, the feeling faded, and one of the words on the cover became legible.

"Lexicon, huh? Ah well, it's a pretty book, I may as well keep it."

Zanna closed the box that it had come from, and carried the oddly light book to her room, where she put it on her desk. She then continued unpacking the boxes stacked in her room.

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Isaac looked around the house for his guardian, having been orphaned the same as Zanna. He found the silver haired man in his study, looking at a sword that resembled a bat's wing.

"Hey Uncle Riku, can we talk?" Isaac asked tentatively.

Riku turned with a smile on his face. Despite having silver hair, he was quite young. He'd had the silver hair even when he was Isaac's age. Currently in his forties, he still retained some of his youthfulness, despite all he'd seen.

"Sure thing, brat. What's on your mind?" he said, sitting in a large, comfortable chair. Isaac sat in one of the two other chairs in the study.

"Well, for starters there's this girl . . ."

"I know that predicament." Riku smiled.

"But there's also something else about her. She . . . she's called Reno by the name Axel." Riku's smile drooped a little, but he nodded and forced it back up.

"And she called me Zex. I can only assume it was short for Zexion."

The look of shock on Riku's face spoke volumes. Isaac could tell he'd hit a sore point in the man's history. The older man's mind reeled with the information, it was something he'd feared for a while, since Isaac looked so much like the Organization Thirteen member, as well as his friends looking markedly like the others. Inhaling slowly through his nose, getting some of the scents around him, he asked his ward only one thing.

"What do you smell, Isaac?"

The question threw the boy for a loop. He was not expecting that at all, and it seemed more random than anything he could have possibly imagined. He took a few tentative sniffs anyways, since Riku had never steered him wrong before.

"The scent of the islands, papou fruit . . ." He sniffed a little harder, catching something odd. "A smell . . . of darkness, and shadow. But that doesn't make sense, how does darkness and shadow have a scent?"

Riku didn't answer, but sat there thinking. He couldn't believe it. Here, sitting in front of him, was the reincarnation of Zexion, the Cloaked Schemer. Renowned for his ability to identify people by scent from miles away. The man knew the scent of darkness and shadow was coming from himself, as well as some of the island and papou fruit scent, but they did live on the islands anyways. Those scents could be explained away, but not the darkness and shadow.

"I would answer your questions, Ze – I mean, Isaac, but there's a lot I need to think about right now. I'd like to meet that girl though. Try to invite her for dinner, or something." Riku stood, going through the shelves in his study.

Isaac stood, baffled by this change in personality of his guardian. Walking to his room, he tried to figure what had alarmed his Uncle Riku so much. It would seem he had much more to think about than before. Lying on his bed, he stared up at the ceiling. Not only was a girl interested in him, but she also had to have some sort of connection with the Organization, which was blocked off from her conscious mind, and unavailable for him to reach. She'd called him Zex, his guardian was bothered by that information, and the strange scents he'd picked up that made no sense to him. He also caught his guardian start to call him by some name starting with a Z as well. So many things were happening, ever since Zanna came along, that were so confusing. Thinking back on what she looked like, he supposed that she was rather attractive as well, but more than that, he'd rather find out what her connection was to the Organization. As well as why Uncle Riku had requested the 'sniff' test. It seemed that nothing made sense anymore.

Isaac lay there, ruminating on the possibilities of why everything seemed to be falling apart well into the nighttime.

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Zanna woke up that morning feeling both weakened and energized at the same time. Looking at the Lexicon on her desk, she considered bringing it with her to school, but decided otherwise. She didn't want to carry it around on a day when she had to deal with Reno in physical education, who knows what he might try to do with it for her comments in homeroom yesterday.

"Maybe tomorrow." She said to the book, even though she knew quite well that it wouldn't answer her back. Heading downstairs, she saw that she'd finally been graced with a lunch for school. Smiling, she thought that even if he'd scared her yesterday, that if Isaac asked her to join them for lunch again, she might very well take him up on his offer. She was becoming friends with Jericho and Thane, after all.

Seeing Zanna walking into the gates of the school, Jericho caught up to her.

"Hey."

"Oh hey, Jericho. How're you today?" she grinned.

"Decent. But hey, just to let you know, Isaac didn't really mean to freak you out yesterday. He really didn't know that he can look kinda scary when he starts talking about picking brains."

"Kind of, he says." Zanna laughed. "Nah, it's ok. I figured it was just something odd that he does, since everyone in your group seems to be a bit secretive about that."

Jericho looked a bit oddly at her.

"No need to bring that up."

"Right, right." Zanna nodded, and they headed into homeroom together.

The homeroom teacher had added in a new desk for Zanna, since the rest were all full. It did stick out like a sore thumb, but she at least had her own seat. The class slowly filled in, as they'd come in early to sit. Zanna pulled out her sketchbook, and continued a group drawing she was making of Isaac's group. She didn't notice Thane come up behind her and look over her shoulder.

"Devin's hair is a bit longer, and more annoying." He commented, laughing at the octopus that she'd stuck on his head for laughs in her sketch. Zanna looked up and laughed with him.

"I dunno, looks like an octopus to me . . ." she laughed.

The class filled up, and she glanced up once at Isaac as he came in, but then looked away, still remembering the look in his eyes from yesterday, as well as blushing. He didn't go straight to his desk, but over to her. Placing a hand on her shoulder to get her attention, he spoke through the curtain of hair that hid his face.

"I'm – I'm sorry for yesterday, Zanna. I didn't realize I could get like that."

"Its okay, Isaac. You should see me when someone interrupts my drawing." She smiled, blushing slightly.

"I'm glad to know that you weren't hurt too bad by my actions." He said, a slight smile crossing his features.

She flushed a little more as he walked over to his seat. The bell rang, and most of the class settled down. The group in the back, however, talked amongst themselves for most of the class. Zanna debated sliding her desk back, so that she could talk to them as well, but wasn't sure how well being friends with only three of the members would keep the others from being rude to her. She noticed with a slight shrug that Devin wasn't in school today.

Smiling, thinking she'd finally stop having her things blown around in algebra, she actually looked forward to creative writing, even if it wasn't really that creative. Miss Megara still told them what to write about, instead of it being totally creative. It might cramp her style a little, but at least she could write her poetry in the free verse style, as opposed to all the rhyme schemes that she had to put up with in English classes. Something about rhyming seemed childish and uncreative to her. She added a few more people to her drawing of Isaac's group, catching a few of the details of Dylan's strange hairstyle. She hoped that someday she could make it a sort of mural in a room of hers, if they managed to stay here.

Unfortunately, creative writing ended too soon for her tastes, as she had to go on to algebra afterwards. Maybe she could get Isaac to help her with the gibberish, if he even understood what it meant. Groaning, she slid into her seat, not registering Mordy sitting next to her, instead of his regular seat.

"Hey." He said, getting her attention.

"Um, hi." she blinked a few times at the boy sitting next to her. "Mordy, right?" she asked, checking the notes she'd jotted down in science, when Jericho had told her about the group.

"Yeah, caught that huh? Anyways, I got a message from Isaac."

Their teacher glared at them, which just earned an eye roll from Mordy.

"As if I'd listen to that dude. Anyways, he says come to the band room at lunch. He's gotta ask you something."

Zanna giggled to herself.

"Wow, when Jericho says you don't sound like the English expert that you are, he doesn't lie." Mordy rolled his eyes.

"Dude, just cause I'm good at it don't mean I wanna use it all the time. Except, the old English dudes had some great insults. Oh, hey, want me to show you where the band room is, since lunch is up next?"

"Sounds good. And here I thought you didn't like me." She laughed again.

"Nah, just had to learn the ropes, right? Besides, you got Thane liking you, which is a step in the right direction in my book."

"Mordechai! If you and Zanna do not pay attention, you will fail. Do you understand me?" the teacher bellowed.

Mordy narrowed his eyes at the man, then an evil grin spread across his face.

"Sure do, you toffee nosed, malodorous eel skin."

"What did you call me?"

"Oh, my apologies, let me clarify for you, thou pigeon livered swollen parcel of dropsies. You lack any direction for yourself and must follow your superiors, often with your nose up their bum, which causes you to emit foul odors from your tanned, stretched skin of a worthless body."

Zanna stared, and couldn't help but giggle at the total change from surfer slang to proper and even old English. That and the insults were pretty funny. The teacher, still failing to understand what Mordy was saying completely, ignored them for the rest of the class.

"Well that was some display of language. I don't think a single word of that was a curse either."

"Nope. It's really fun to pull that out when one of the teachers gets too gripey. It's got a bigger impact going from how I normally talk, too. Anyways, class is almost over, let's slip out early. I can always get Devin to translate this stuff for me anyways."

Shrugging, Zanna followed the stripy haired boy.

"Wait, there's someone who understands that gibberish?" she asked as they walked to the band room.

"Yeah, I sure ain't passing on my own. Why? Need help with it?"

"That's an understatement."

"I'll let ya look at my paper once Devin's done with it. Even if it doesn't make sense, he gives everyone the same problems."

Zanna still chuckled to herself randomly as they strolled right into the band room. The bell had just rung, and a lot of the kids were packing up their instruments for lunch. Dylan was there already, and after giving her an unfriendly look, focused on the frets of his guitar, ignoring her and Mordy.

"Dude, I don't wanna see so much as a drop of water over here." Mordy told the boy as he showed Zanna where to sit.

Dylan's only answer was to hit a sour chord. Mordy shook his head and laughed at him, sitting nearby Zanna, but on a lower level of the band room's stepped seating. Zanna pondered over it as the rest of the group trickled in. Thane pulled Ember over to the piano after she shot Zanna an evil look, and occupied her by talking to her. A tall blonde boy looked at her as though she could be a possible experiment as he passed.

"That's Rupert. Don't drink anything he gives you." Jericho said as he sat nearby her, but also on a lower level.

"Okay . . . the science geek, right?" Zanna asked, causing Mordy to laugh.

"She already got him pegged. That's hilarious dude."

Bastien passed by the group without a look, sitting by Dylan and Rupert. Reno was the next to enter, and started to head straight for Zanna, when both Jericho and Mordy stood in front of her.

"No, I can fight my own battles, guys."

"You don't want to fight this battle with nobody around to keep him in check, Zanna." Jericho warned her.

Isaac walked in just then. Smirking, Jericho and Mordy sat back down. Reno hadn't yet seen Isaac walk in and advanced towards Zanna again.

"I wouldn't do that if I were you, Reno."

Hearing Isaac's quiet voice, the redhead stopped in his tracks. He then took a wide detour to sit by Dylan. Zanna just raised her eyebrows before returning to her roast beef sandwich. Isaac climbed the stepped seating and sat next to Zanna.

"I see the rain check has cleared." He smiled slightly.

"Yeah. I just wasn't sure how everyone else would react to my joining you."

"Don't worry about the others so much, I won't let them do anything." Zanna blushed at this.

"But I did ask that you come for a reason. Seeing as I don't have any classes with you outside of homeroom today, and we were a bit far away to talk during class, this would be my only time to ask. My uncle wants to invite you to dinner, and I figured tonight might be a good time."

Mordy and Jericho exchanged looks, unnoticed by either Isaac or Zanna. She flushed a little and looked slightly away.

"I'd have to tell my mom, but I think I could make it. I'd like to drop off my stuff at home too."

"Not a problem. We usually eat a little later anyways."

Isaac took her note journal from her lap and wrote down his address and a time on a blank sheet. Jericho and Mordy started poking each other, grins on their faces. Leaning back to get a clear look at Bastien, Mordy called out to him.

"Dude! That's fifty bucks you owe me! Looks like you lost this bet." He laughed.

Zanna looked at him, confused.

"What bet?"

"Oh, mister gamble-o-holic over there bet me that you'd never be able to become friends with us. Thought for sure Isaac would hate you forever."

Bastien grumbled irritably as he got up and handed Mordy a handful of money. He then walked over to Thane and handed him some money as well. Thane grinned and tossed his pink hair as the blonde walked away.

"And what was that one, Thane?" Jericho asked, after Zanna had nudged him.

Thane turned to the small group of underclassmen. He knew it was Zanna's question, but figured she was still wary of a few of the group. He couldn't blame her though, after the way Reno had acted.

"What gender our dear Isaac was interested in." he grinned as the junior froze.

Zanna's face turned bright red in seconds, and she tried to hide behind her hair. Mordy's and Jericho's jaws dropped, and even Dylan stopped playing. Feeling eyes on her, as well as certain they were staring at Thane and Isaac also, Zanna hurriedly grabbed her things and stood.

"I'll see you tonight, Isaac." She said shortly as she fled the band room.

Isaac slowly turned to glare at Thane after she'd left. Thane's only response was an embarrassed smile and a shrug. Reno tried to ignore what was happening, much like he ignored one aspect of his life that he didn't want to admit to.

"Bastien, make sure she knows that Thane was being an idiot. I have to get to class." Isaac said as he stood, picking up his backpack and journal.

Ember looked at her boyfriend worriedly. Sure, she didn't like taking orders from the quiet kid, but she knew what he was capable of, and because of that, she respected him. The bell then rang, so she kissed him goodbye and followed Bastien to history class. She hoped that Isaac didn't end up doing anything to him, otherwise she might get angry.

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Bastien grumbled at having to be the messenger boy this time. Usually it was Jericho's job to let people know what was going on, not his, and he still wasn't sure if he liked the girl. Something about her creeped him out. He couldn't put his finger on it, but she was just strange. He still didn't have all the odds figured, so he was going to sit back and wait to see what happened. It was just like a game of Texas hold-em to him. In fact, all of life was like a card game to him. It was just a matter of who the odds were on, what the odds were, and who got lucky.

"Hey. You." He said as he saw Zanna at her seat, still hiding behind her hair.

"Isaac says that Thane was just being an idiot."

Zanna just nodded, and he sat at his seat, ignoring her again. He'd delivered the message, so he was done. He wanted to check, but Thane just had to throw out that bid, causing everyone at the table to see it, if they wanted to continue on this hand. It had potential to be an interesting game, so he'd seen the bid too, barely. The flop hadn't even been dealt yet, how could Thane choose to bid? There was still too much to be decided.

Zanna paid no attention to the history teacher as the old tale of the Turks from another world was told for what seemed like the fiftieth time to her mind. She continued mostly on her group drawing of the group, inserting herself next to Isaac, looking at him shyly and blushing. She kept the sketch in pencil, since she knew that there would probably be changes as she got to know the others a little better.

At one point, the teacher mentioned the Organization. Hearing this, Zanna paid attention for a few minutes to what he was saying.

"A few people speculate that some of the Turks were the original Others of a few of the Nobodies that were in the Organization. We don't know this for sure, as we have no records of this. There is the matter of Zexion's Lexicon, which many believe to still be in existence. Until we find it, or find proof that it even exists, we may never know."

As the teacher droned on about the Turks again, Zanna continued work on her drawing. So far, she had her and Isaac in the center, with Mordy, Thane, and Jericho around them. Ember was off to Thane's right, holding his hand. Reno was nearly to the edge of the page, glaring at her. The octopus head was off somewhere to Mordy's left, standing with Dylan and Bastien. Rupert was a bit farther right than Ember, holding some chemicals in his hands. She was just penciling in Dimitri next to Rupert when the bell rang.

She didn't notice Ember glaring at her as she hurried off to the gym. Zanna still hoped to win over the girl, as she figured that being the only female in the group, she'd like to have another girl around, even if that girl was a tomboy by nature. Ember struck her as not quite as girly as she dressed either. She might wear halter tops, miniskirts, and other 'cute' clothes, the girl seemed a lot tougher than the clothes she wore would indicate. Perhaps it was this aura of danger surrounding Ember that made Zanna give her a wide berth. Ember would probably be a powerful ally, if she ever got on her good side.

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Today Coach Clayton set Zanna in a group of classmates against another team that included Reno. She grumbled irritably at being put against him, but still played. At least she didn't have to guard Dimitri this time. She did her best to play fairly, but every time Reno came near her, she felt something sparking her legs, like someone was flicking a lighter near her. She would look sometimes, trying to catch him with a lighter in his hand, but he never had one. As annoyed as she was getting, it never seemed to occur to her to wonder how he was either hiding the lighter so fast, or how he was sparking at her without one. Each spark got her angrier and angrier at the redhead.

"Cut it the fuck out, Sparky." She growled at him as he tried to block her shot.

"Cut what out, poser?" he smirked at her.

Irritated, she passed the ball to one of her teammates a little too hard, earning an outburst from the guy.

"Hey! Watch how you handle the ball!" he yelled at her.

Zanna didn't care, didn't even hear him. She stood there, glaring at Reno, not noticing something in her gut skew and twist. If she'd have paid attention to it, she might have stopped to wonder what it was, but her anger was quite nearly controlling her now. Reno swaggered up, getting in her face. He didn't seem to notice the aura of full blown anger around her, or didn't care.

"What'cha gonna do, cry?" he sneered.

"Get the fuck away from me!" she yelled, shoving him.

As her hands made contact, a brief, bright purple flash emanated from her hands. Reno went flying across the court, hitting the other basket's post, hard. He didn't move for a while after he hit. Zanna looked at her hands in amazement, not noticing Dimitri staring at her, slack-jawed.


	4. Confusion, Books, and Laughter

Zanna fled to the locker room, ignoring the calls of Coach Clayton to return to the basketball courts. 'What the hell am I?' she asked herself as she changed into her regular clothes, taking her backpack out of the locker and slamming it afterwards. Slipping into the hallways, she crept into one of the girl's rooms and stared at herself in the mirror. She still looked like the same girl; short purple hair, usually in her cerulean eyes, which were wide with some measure of panic. There were some shadows under them, but then she'd had a rough first few days at this school. As she stood there trying to figure out what had happened in gym, the bell rang.

Walking towards the entrance and exit of the school, she saw Dimitri talking to a bandaged Reno. Still kind of embarrassed by what she'd done in gym, she ran ahead into a group of kids. Mordy saw her as she rushed into the crowd, and jogged to catch up to her.

"Hey Zanna, in a hurry or something?" he said, coming up behind her.

"I . . . well, I should go home and get ready for dinner with Isaac and his uncle." She stammered out.

"Really then? Suppose you shouldn't be late for your date." He said, nudging her shoulder with his own.

"I can not believe you just said that." Zanna blushed.

"I say a lot of things people can't believe." He laughed. "Some of them they don't understand."

Zanna laughed and shook her head in disbelief. No wonder Isaac kept him around, he had the best way of getting people to forget their problems. She knew she couldn't tell Isaac what she'd done to Reno though, at least not at dinner. That would be rude, and she had no idea how his uncle would respond to her talking about strange blasts coming from her hands when she got annoyed. In her musings, she didn't see Mordy look behind him at Dimitri and Reno.

"Hey, what happened to Reno, do ya know?" he asked her.

"It's . . . it's hard to explain. I'll see you tomorrow, okay?" she said, running off again.

Mordy stopped where he stood, wondering why she would be so skittish all of a sudden. He waited for Reno and Dimitri to catch up to where he was.

"What happened to you, dude?"

"That bitch. She's one of us." Reno glared at her retreating back, holding his head with one hand.

"She what?" Mordy stared in shock.

"She's got some sort of energy blast. It threw Reno three quarters of the way across the courts and into the opposing basket's pole." Dimitri told the shorter boy.

"Where's Isaac?" Reno demanded.

"He went home early, something about getting things set up for dinner."

"Fuck! He needs to be warned." Reno said, turning towards Isaac's house as he left the school.

Mordy and Dimitri looked at each other and followed behind their friend.

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The small blonde girl looked around, taking in the changes made to the islands since she'd last been here. Sure, she'd been part of her Other at the time, but this time it was her turn. She'd felt the call from the book she'd sent on, and she was sure her friend would have felt it too. He was always slow to get things done lately, especially since he had to work at separating and becoming younger at the same time. It was part of her requirements when she'd asked the shadow-walker to add one thing to his book. She and the boy had to return in the same form as when they'd be reabsorbed, the moment that a member of the Organization touched the book after his death. That was why she had to be the one to send it on to the woman, anyone else capable of it would have triggered it too early.

Nobody noticed the slight girl as she walked down the streets, headed towards the place the call had come from.

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Zanna hummed happily to herself as she changed, glad to have gotten permission from her mother to go to the dinner. Slipping on a cute tee with a silver heart on it, she looked at the ensemble in her mirror. The slightly faded black flares matched well with the shirt and her black boots. Throwing a black puffy hat on her head, she grabbed the Lexicon without thinking, and headed out, address already memorized.

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Riku glared at the backs of the three boys as they walked away. He didn't like the crowd that Isaac hung out with in the first place, much less when they dropped by unannounced ranting about how they needed to warn him about some girl. He was having a hard enough time coping with the fact that he was raising Zexion, he didn't need to have the added stress of worrying about some new girl, when the one that Isaac seemed to like was going to show up soon.

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Continuing on her search for the schemer's book, Naminé checked in on Roxas through Sora's memories. He'd finally separated himself from the now older man. She'd left the suggestion in his own memories that he should enlist in the local high school once they were called. She may have to as well, if the Organization member had taken the Lexicon anywhere with them tonight. Looking at the two story building she'd stopped in front of, she listened for any sounds of people inside. There was one light on upstairs, but she figured she could get in without bothering whoever was up there.

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Holding the tome to her chest, Zanna nervously knocked on Isaac's door. Briefly, she considered fleeing before the door opened. Isaac smiled at her, backing up to let her inside. He had changed as well, and was wearing a blue and white plaid shirt, open, over a dark blue tank top with dark denim shorts.

"I'm glad you could make it Zanna."

"I was almost worried that I wouldn't. My mother can be a real pain."

"I can imagine. I couldn't say I understand, because Uncle Riku treats me well. Speaking of which, I should introduce you."

Zanna nodded, and put the Lexicon down on the coffee table as Isaac led her to the kitchen, where Riku was still cooking.

"Uncle Riku, this is my friend Zanna."

The silver haired man turned, wooden spoon in hand and grinned at the girl.

"Nice to meet you! I heard . . . well, I don't get much out of Isaac nowadays, but based on what I've seen when he did tell me about you, you must be something special."

Zanna blushed and looked away as Isaac glanced at his guardian with a frown.

"Oh, loosen up Isaac. No room for being so serious on the islands." Riku laughed, turning back to the sauce he was cooking.

"Your uncle sounds like more fun to be around than my mother." Zanna giggled as she and Isaac went back to the living room.

She picked up the book before sitting on the couch. Isaac sat a foot or so away from her.

"Well, you're gaining ground fast in the group." Isaac said, to break the silence.

"Oh not hardly. I mean, yeah, I talk to Mordy and Jericho, and Thane is fun to talk about art with, but I have so many people to still get to know."

"You're still getting respect from most of them, which is more than some people can claim." He looked over at her.

"I guess so . . . I don't think I'll ever get Reno to like me though."

"He's like that with everyone. Ember had a lot more to go through than you are to get him to even talk to her politely. He'll eventually warm up to you." They both chuckled softly.

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Inside the house, Naminé tried to get a further sense of where the Lexicon was. It was harder this close to the site where an Organization member had touched it, but as it was confined to somewhere in the house, she felt confident that she'd find it. Silently climbing the stairs, she noted that there was a strong feel of it both behind a closed door, and further above her. Looking up, she saw a set of trundle stairs in the ceiling. Hoping that it was still in storage, she pulled down the stairs and climbed up, closing them behind her.

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Reno held his throbbing head in his hands, elbows resting on the table as he waited for the others to get to the coffee shop. He'd had Mordy and Dimitri call the others to talk about what he'd recently found out. The shorter boy had given him a painkiller for his head, but it still hurt.

"What happened to you?" Dylan asked as he slid into a chair across from the aching redhead.

"What happened to me is why I called the meeting. When everyone is here, I'll tell you."

"Must be serious."

"Yeah." He drew the word out, irritation staining the word with the implications of pain and anger.

The rest of the group came into the shop in small groups of twos and threes, wondering what was so urgent.

"This new girl, Zanna, has got to go." Reno started.

"Oh, really Reno. Just because she called you a gay pedophile is no reason to get all worked up." Thane smirked, holding Ember on his lap.

"She threw me into a goddamn basketball post with her fucking energy blast, Thane!" Reno yelled, shooting to his feet.

Many of the members shied away from Reno's outburst. Jericho, Thane, and Ember looked the most stunned. Some of the other customers stared at the group, wondering why the skinny teen was yelling.

"Calm down, Reno!" Mordy hissed.

He sat back down, once again holding a hand to his aching head, avoiding the looks of censure from Mordy and Rupert. The group remained silent for a while, considering this new development.

"What were you doing to her?" Jericho asked quietly.

Noticing the sound of Jericho's voice, Dimitri, Devin, and Bastien all looked out the window to see what the moon looked like. They glanced at each other with some alarm as they saw that it was nearing full. He was always at his most dangerous when the moon was full. Some of them called it his 'lunatic' side, some tried to ignore it. It was dangerous, however, for Reno to push him at this late in the lunar cycle. Reno glanced at Dimitri, to get an idea of how careful he needed to be. The larger boy just shook his head slowly.

"I wasn't doing anything different than what I do to any of the girls in gym class."

"You sparked her?" Jericho's eyes narrowed.

"Even that's not enough to write off what she did to me. A little spark does not equal being thrown into a steel post."

"She did not know what Isaac was capable of. It freaked her out when she did find out. How do you think she responded to what she did?"

Reno stared at the younger boy.

"She . . . didn't know that she . . . was like us?"

"No." he said, with what seemed like waning patience.

"I think we're all surprised." Thane offered.

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"Hey, come on in and eat." Riku called from the dining area in the kitchen.

Zanna and Isaac stood and went into the kitchen, with Zanna still carrying the tome. She set it to the side of her plate as she sat, not noticing Riku looking at it with some curiosity. The older man didn't say anything about the book though, and served the parmesan chicken while making small talk. The conversation ranged through school, family, and friends, among other things before Riku finally had to ask about the book that she'd brought.

"So, you like old books or something?" he asked, nodding at the tome next to her.

"Oh, I found this in my attic. It's apparently left over from my mom. Too bad I never knew her. It kind of . . . tingled or something when I picked it up."

"Tingled?" Isaac asked dubiously.

"Yeah, it's hard to explain exactly. I haven't yet tried to read it, but it's such a nice looking book. I thought it would be nice to share with another bibliophile."

"May I look at it?" the older man asked, returning from putting the plates in the sink.

"Sure thing."

Zanna handed the book to him, noting that it got heavier as he touched it. Since the previous incidents of the strange power hum and it's uncanny lightness for it's size, she didn't bother trying to figure out the whys of the book's oddities. Riku didn't try opening it, already worried that it was the infamous Lexicon that may just awaken Zexion's memories in Isaac, but looking at the cover alone told him enough. If this wasn't the real thing, it was a highly convincing copy. He could only hope that it was a copy. Knowing that asking Zanna about the book would give Isaac more hints as to who he was, so he kept his mouth shut.

"It is a very nicely bound book, you should keep an eye on it. Someone might think it's something like the sixth Organization member's Lexicon and steal it from you." He said, handing it back to her.

"Huh, never thought of that. They started talking about the Organization in history today. Something about some of the Turks from another world being the others of some of them or some such. I've heard of the other worlds that some people went to back then, but other than that . . ." she drifted off.

"Ah yeah, the Turks. They never became heartless, nor did they even come to this world. Only Cloud, Leon, and that group did." Riku laughed "I should know, I met them. Everyone thought Sephiroth was my father."

"Sephawhatnow?"

"Sephiroth." Isaac answered for the man. "He was one of Cloud's main antagonists on their world, and he continued here. Much like my uncle, he's got silver hair and teal eyes. That I think, is the only reason they called him my uncle's father." He laughed shortly.

Isaac could not deny that he wanted to read through the book that Zanna had brought. Something about it drew him to it, as though he felt it should be his. He didn't want to frighten her away again by demanding it though, there were too many weird coincidences surrounding her that needed clearing up. He also couldn't ignore the attraction he had to her, even if he refrained from showing it. It kept him in control, which is where he liked to be. It always seemed that his luck ran thin when he wasn't in control.

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Finding the box that she'd sent to Ais' sister, Naminé opened it to find the contents had been shuffled about, and that the Lexicon had been removed. Sighing softly, she went back to the trundle stairs and listened for a minute before lowering them slowly. It was always harder to control the sound of something falling than something being brought down to your level. Looking around, she saw that the person inside hadn't noticed the stairs coming down on their own, and descended softly. After putting the stairs back in place, the young Nobody silently entered the closed room that she'd felt the mark of the Lexicon coming from. It was obviously the room of an artist, with drawings pinned to the walls, and bookshelves crammed with sketchpads and art theory books. There was also a bookshelf full of an eclectic assortment of books.

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"Thank you for a wonderful meal, and a lovely time Mr. Riku." Zanna smiled as both Riku and Isaac walked her to the door.

"Just Riku is fine, unless you want to call me uncle too." The man laughed.

"Oh, but what would Isaac say if I were to start calling you uncle too?" she laughed, forgetting to hide the slight blush.

Isaac just put his hand to his face and shook his head, causing Riku to laugh some more and Zanna to giggle. Waving one last time, she told Isaac that she'd be sure to bring the book with her to school tomorrow, so he could have a chance to look at it. As discreet as he'd thought he'd been, she'd noticed him eyeing her book with interest. The hand in front of Isaac's face dropped suddenly, and she saw a bit of surprise in his visible eye, and a hint of a blush. She managed to calmly grin and walk off, even though she was squealing happily inside her mind at getting a blush out of the boy.

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Mordy walked with Dimitri away from the coffee shop where they had all met up to talk about the incident with Zanna and Reno in gym.

"So now what? Isaac is going to be pretty upset that he wasn't the first to know about it." The shorter boy started.

"I think not being the one to be thrown against steel posts would make up for it pretty well."

"Good point. But he'll need to know soon. We can only hope that he comes in earlier than she does. Heck, I'll even come in early just to tell him if I gotta."

"Such a sacrifice you make." Dimitri said as he looked at his friend.

"Very funny." Mordy glared at him.

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Naminé looked up as she heard the door open.

"Who are you and what are you doing going through my stuff?" Zanna asked, putting the Lexicon on her nightstand.

"You have something of mine in that book." The blond murmured, getting up from where she'd been kneeling on the floor.

"What? This book is from my mother, how could there be something of yours in here?"

"It's a long story, and it involves the Organization. I sent your mother that book. Inside it is one of my sketchbooks that has important information."

"No way, you're too young. You can't have sent my mom this book. And what does this book have to do with the Organization?"

"You haven't yet awakened then, Naxzan. It won't be long. Xemnas is already plotting. You have to find the others, they'll help you understand. Or more accurately, remember."

Opening the front cover of the Lexicon, the blonde removed a sketchbook from the pages and disappeared into what looked like a swirling black portal. Zanna stared blankly at the portal as it shrank into nothingness before passing out onto her bed.

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The next morning, Isaac saw a very tired looking Mordy waiting for him with Dimitri at the front of the school.

"You're here earlier than usual." He commented, amused.

"There's something you gotta know about your girl dude." Mordy yawned "I can sleep in homeroom to make up for it. She's like us."

"Like . . . us?"

"She has some manner of energy blast – it threw Reno against a basketball post yesterday." Dimitri told him.

"An energy blast? Like Naxzan's was rumored to be?"

"It was purple, and fairly powerful. She could probably hold her own against any of us." The larger boy confirmed.

Zanna did not notice the small group talking in front of the school, as she was trying to read the Lexicon while she walked. Every now and then, something would twinge in her head, and some little detail would occur to her, like a memory, but not. At one point, she stopped nearby them, trying to connect the link that teased her on the outskirts of her memory.

"No, not . . . it's . . . zi . . . ugh." She put her hand to her head, then glanced over at the group, who was watching her.

"Holy-" she put her hand over her mouth.

"What?" the three boys asked her at the same time.

"Um . . . you should try purple streaks." She said, pointing at Mordy before fleeing to homeroom.

Mordy and Dimitri looked at each other, confused, as Isaac watched her run off with the book. Shrugging, the short black haired boy pulled the long ponytail over his shoulder to look at it.

"You think?" Dimitri just shrugged. "Yeah, I'll give it a shot. I do like purple anyways."

Isaac just followed after the girl, intent on finding out what she'd been trying to figure out. Once he caught sight of her, he entered her mind to see if he could find out that way. What he saw surprised him. The subconscious blocks that he'd seen before were cracking, and she was trying to break through them on her own. Withdrawing from her mind, he caught up to her.

"Are you okay, Zanna?" he asked.

"Um, yeah. Well, maybe. Do you know of any blonde girls dressed in white that disappear through spiky black portal things?"

"If it were a few decades ago, I'd say it was Naminé, but she's since been reabsorbed into her Other, who's aged since then. She shouldn't be a young girl, even if she's separated again."

"Whoever she was, she said something about being around the right people would help me remember something. Also that someone named Xemnas is plotting, that I had one of her sketchbooks, and she called me Naxzan."

"That's a lot to dump on someone." He said, writing rapidly in his journal.

He couldn't believe that someone remarkably like Naminé had contacted her, and that Mordy's connection of Zanna to Naxzan had apparently occurred to another person. Unless . . . maybe she was Naxzan reborn? And if she was, who were the other members? As if he didn't have enough to figure out about the girl, another shows up and complicates things more. And even if the girl was the fourteenth member reborn, it would raise up more questions than it answered.

"Yeah. I figured I might be able to understand what she meant if I read this book, but it's hard to understand. I think it's in some sort of code sometimes, but others I can read it just fine. And it seems to be triggering something in my memories."

"Oh, is that what you were trying to figure out earlier?"

"No, it's something . . . ugh . . ." she put her hand to her head again "it has something to do with the name I called Reno. There's something there, but I can't get at it." She paused, and interrupted just as Isaac was about to say something. "Wait, you said you could help with subconscious blocks, right? Maybe that's something you could help me with."

Zanna dragged her desk back towards the group's area in homeroom. Settling it next to Mordy's seat, she continued her conversation with Isaac. At this point, Mordy's desk was the only one between hers and Isaac's.

"I can try, but I sometimes can't get in to hidden parts of people's minds, to be honest." He told her, sitting in Mordy's seat so that he'd be closer and access would be easier.

Turning to face her, he probed into her mind, headed for the subconscious blocks that he'd sensed earlier. Seeing his friend in his seat, Mordy just shrugged and fell asleep in Isaac's seat as the older teen worked on getting into Zanna's subconscious mind. As the rest of the group in that class showed up, they looked at the pair oddly, wondering what exactly they were doing. Even through their wondering, they knew not to interrupt the junior when he was in the middle of something that seemed as intense as what he was doing, whatever it was. Just before the bell rang, Isaac withdrew from Zanna's mind.

"I tried what I could, but everything else will have to come naturally. I think there are some truly interesting things hidden in there though. Perhaps even some answers to questions I have."

"Speaking of questions, what's a Xigbar?"

Isaac stared at her in shock for a few seconds, then slowly started laughing. He hadn't intended to laugh at her question, as her knowledge of the Organization was minimal at best, but the implications that one of the members was a thing as opposed to a person was positively hilarious to him. Granted, Xigbar was one of the stranger members, but it was still hilarious thinking of him as an it. As he continued laughing, more of the group looked at him oddly. In all their years of knowing him, which was a lot since they'd grown up with him, they'd never seen him laugh so hard. Thane and Jericho grinned, the latter waking up Mordy to see how Zanna had affected their sometimes all too serious friend. Thane flashed a thumbs up to her over his friend's shoulder.

"I'll have to tell you in art class." He said, still laughing as he walked off to his next class.


	5. Revelations, desired and not

"Oh man, I don't know what you did, but you have got to do that more." Thane told her as he passed by.

"Wait . . . ugh." She sighed as he didn't stop. "What did I do?" she asked noone in particular as she followed Jericho and Reno to class.

"How nice to see you grace us with your presence, Kenneth." Yen Sid said as the trio entered the class.

Reno just crossed his arms and glared at the man, still in a foul mood from being thrown against the steel pole. He would have ditched again if Thane hadn't insisted on going to class. Even Devin didn't want to ditch, which annoyed him. He'd much rather just get Rupert to do his work for him, since any time science was brought up, he'd do it. It didn't matter what kind of science, he'd be interested. The redhead sat in the furthest seat from the board as he could, which was coincidentally Zanna's seat.

"Oh why won't you get over it?" she asked as she saw him in her seat.

"Just go sit with moon boy or something. I don't even want to be here." He told her, waving her towards his own seat.

Shrugging, she took the empty seat by Jericho. The blue haired boy was reading a text on his phone and laughing to himself.

"What's funny?" she asked, nudging him with her elbow.

"Oh, the" he laughed some more "the question you asked Isaac. It's a lot funnier when you know about the Organization. He'll have to explain it to you."

"You can't?"

"It's better if he tells it; I don't know that much about Xigbar to explain to you." He laughed again.

"I wish I could . . . I dunno, remember this stuff, if what that girl said was true."

"What girl?"

"Oh, sorry, I forgot to tell you. This girl broke into my room to look for a book that I found in my attic, among my mother's things. She called me Naxzan and told me that I had to find this certain group of people to remember why she called me that in the first place."

"Do you know what group of people you need to find?"

"I guess she meant the Organization. She said someone named Xemnas was plotting already or something."

"The Organization is dead. They've been dead . . . at least fourteen years. I don't know how you're going to find them."

Sighing, Zanna lightly punched the desk, purple sparks shooting from her fist. A small scorch mark, perfectly shaped like the side of her fist where she'd hit it. Both she and Jericho gaped at what had happened.

"I don't know why this keeps happening. I don't understand it, and it kind of scares me. What am I?" she whispered, tears glittering in her eyes.

The blue haired boy sighed. He didn't want to tell her, because it was their sworn secret of the group, but it might be the only way to help her feel better.

"You're not the only one like you. I get crazy during the full moon. Stupid things make me angry, and it's worse when I'm in the moon's light. My hair spikes up, and my eyes glow. It's been like that for a while now, and recently, it's getting worse. Reno can make flames. Dylan can manipulate water. Rupert borders on hypothermic all the time. Devin makes wind, Dimitri has this weird sense of earth, and Ember can create minor lightning bolts. Thane has more than a green thumb, he controls the plants to some extent, and he can make people feel ill. Bastien? Bastien can freeze time for a minute, maybe more now. You know what Isaac can do, kind of. He can also make you believe things, if he wants to. Mordy can bend the very fabric of space a little. We had to keep these gifts secret so that we wouldn't be attacked. They fear us because they don't understand us. It's a terrible thing to live with, but none of us would ever give it up. Being one of us . . . is a burden, but it's also a gift. You should eat with us from now on, because once they hear about it, we'll be all you have left."

Tears were streaming down his cheeks. He felt like he'd been relieved of a terrible burden. He hadn't realized how much he already cared for the girl, almost like a sister. Closing his eyes, he rested his face in his hands, attempting to hide the tears. He didn't look up when Zanna rested one arm on his shoulders, an expression of companionship. She smiled through the tears she shed for her friends and squeezed his shoulders.

"It doesn't matter what they say. You're a great guy, Saï."

She frowned at that, and pulled her arm away to think.

"Saï? Saïx? Wait, that's another memory unlocked . . . maybe . . ." she looked over at Jericho "Maybe I'm supposed to be here, with you, and Isaac, and the rest of the group. I remember more around you guys." She smiled.

"Wait, Saïx? I remind you of Saïx? What the?"

Zanna just shrugged as the bell rang and she ran off towards art class with a grin, Lexicon in hand. Laughing softly to herself, she slid into her seat in art and pulled out her journal. She wrote down everything she remembered on one of the pages, and jotted down what name came with which person's contact. So far she had Reno as the reminder of Axel, Jericho as Saïx, and Isaac as someone named Zex.

"No, not Zex . . . it's too short. The name is longer . . ." she muttered to herself, trying to figure it out. "Zex . . . Zexy . . . Zexion! Wait, Zexion?"

Opening the Lexicon, she shuffled through it quickly, to one of the parts she'd read earlier.

"This is . . . Zexion's . . . it belongs to him. Why would I have it?" She was still thinking when Isaac sat next to her, still softly chuckling.

"Okay, Xigbar is a who, not a what." He laughed.

Not looking over, Zanna dropped a hand onto his. He paused for a moment in explaining to look at her hand on his, a slight blush staining his cheeks. After a moment, her hand raised to her mouth.

"This is yours." She whispered, the hand over her mouth muffling it further.

She took her hand off of his and closed the Lexicon. Looking over at him, she brushed back the hair covering her right eye. Looking him full in the face, she offered the tome to him.

"It's yours. It's supposed to be yours." She whispered, just loud enough to hear.

Isaac blinked at her before taking hold of the book. Inhaling sharply as he held the book, his eyes closed. The book glowed a silvery cerulean for a few seconds, then faded. As the pale light faded, he opened his eyes.

"So that's why you called me Zex that day. It's who I am. And this . . . this was mine. This was my . . . weapon."

He flipped rapidly through the pages of the book, coming to the last entry, which was nowhere near the end. Reading, he saw his own writing stipulate that if any Organization member were to touch this book that Naminé and Roxas would separate from their Others in the same form that they'd been reabsorbed. That they'd be young again. And that he would miss Naxzan horribly. There was a note that if even from a scientific standpoint that they did not have hearts, he knew that what served for hers would be breaking when she learned of Axel's betrayal. Apparently in that lifetime, they'd been great friends.

"You can read that page?" Zanna whispered, breaking into his thoughts.

"Yeah, why? Can't you?" he turned the book towards her.

"No, I can't. It's in some kind of code." She shrugged after looking.

Isaac shrugged and went back to reading the Lexicon, hoping to learn something that he didn't know yet about the Organization. Zanna smiled slightly and returned to her drawing of the group. It could be used for the current art project that had been assigned, but she also wanted to get the details right before even starting the project. Not only did she want a copy for herself, but having the details was important to her.

"The Organization could do things, right? I mean, each person had something they could do specifically." She asked the teen as they put their things away to head to lunch.

"Yeah, each member had an element they could control. Why do you ask?"

"It's something that just occurred to me. Do you know who did what?"

"Yeah, I'll write it down for you at lunch. Are you joining us?"

"Yeah, it seems to be the only place I fit." She blushed.

As they walked to the band room, Isaac wrote down the information she needed on a sheet of his journal. He still wasn't sure what would happen if he wrote it in the Lexicon, so he kept that in his backpack. After she read over the torn out sheet that Isaac had given her, she stopped him in front of the band room.

"What if . . . what if we're supposed to be the Organization?" she asked tentatively.

Isaac's head jerked back in surprise. He'd never really thought about it before, but it could be possible. They did seem to have inexplicable abilities similar to the original members, including Zanna's newfound ability. It would require a lot more thought, and would actually answer more questions that he'd had for a while. Including his suspicion that his uncle knew something that he was hiding.

"But we'd be missing two. There was a total of fourteen members of Organization XIII, not thirteen like the name suggested, and one of those was merged with his Other."

"Hmm . . ." Zanna thought for a moment. "But Jericho told me that it's been only 14 years since the last one died, or something like that, what if they aren't in high school this time around yet?"

Isaac started chuckling.

"Xemnas in middle school . . . that would be funny. But who knows, I think it would be better to have answers over hypotheses."

"Hypotheses? That sounds like Rupert's line." She laughed as they started into the band room again.

Sitting with Jericho and Mordy again, she started to go through her backpack to find her lunch, only to remember she hadn't gotten one today. Grumbling about her mother, she put her stuff away and leaned back in the chair. She'd closed her eyes for only a moment when a shadow obscured the lights shining through her eyelids. Opening her eyes, she saw Dimitri standing over her, offering a sandwich and a foil wrapped cupcake.

"Thanks." She smiled, taking the food.

"Hey, you."

Zanna turned towards the voice, which belonged to Bastien, and was just vaguely accented. He tossed a glass bottle of what looked like a pink liquid at her, which she nearly fumbled. Seemingly before she could blink, he appeared in front of her and handed the bottle to her. She blinked rapidly for a moment before what Jericho had told her clicked in. Bastien returned to his seat by Devin, Dimitri, Rupert, and Dylan, while Zanna read the bottle.

"Atomic, huh?" she muttered to herself.

"They don't have one for time, so I prefer that one. Each of us usually has one of those they prefer. Reno likes Fire, Dylan likes Rain, and so on."

"So it works like the abilities then?" she grinned at him.

The band room dropped into sudden silence. Many of the members of the group stared at Zanna as though she'd grown another head. She sighed.

"Look, I'm not stupid, you had to know I was going to figure it out sooner or later. And it's not like I'm so different anyways." She shot a small blast at a music stand, toppling it over.

Some of them slowly started murmuring to their groups and resuming what they were doing, glancing at her every so often. Zanna just rolled her eyes and ate the gifted lunch that she got from Dimitri and Bastien. It would seem that they'd deemed her ok as well. She could only hope that the others would too.

I/II/III/IV/V/VI/VII/VIII/IX/X/XI/XII/XIII/XIV

"So here's the gym, and down that hallway is the girls' locker rooms, Naminé. The boys' locker room is down that other hallway, Roxas. Wow, I swear you two look so familiar . . ." Sora, the school's counselor told the two teens.

Naminé looked at Roxas with a slight grin on her face, enjoying the fact that she'd kept their identities from Sora's past a secret from the man. She just hoped that Naxzan and the others had been in contact with the counselor. After showing them the lockers that they would have for this school term, Sora handed them their class schedules, which he'd explained how the days had worked. Fridays were always short classes, since it crammed all of them into one day. Set loose, the two wandered the school during that period, as it was halfway over.

"So what are we doing here, and why are we separate again?" Roxas asked her.

"Naxzan has found the Lexicon, and I'm assuming carries it around with her a lot. She did seem loath to give it to me when all I wanted was my sketchbook."

"Okay, and why is my Other so much older?"

"Because it took nearly two decades for her to find it again. I did send it to Ais' – Saïx's sister, who apparently birthed the reborn Naxzan. And I had Zexion make that spell affect us in that manner once any member of the Organization touched that book, don't you remember that?"

"You know I have a history of taking forever to remember stuff. Poor Axel had to learn that one the hard way. I miss him." The blond boy sighed wistfully.

"You'll see him again, I'm certain of it, if things are falling into place this fast." Naminé reassured him as they sat in the library, waiting for the next period.

I/II/III/IV/V/VI/VII/VIII/IX/X/XI/XII/XIII/XIV

After French class, and a revelation about Thane having some connection in her memory with Marluxia, whoever that was, Zanna headed into the library to wait for Isaac. He'd agreed to help her with information on the Organization, as the questions came to her. She met up with him outside of the building, and they walked in together, barely noticing the two blondes looking at them as they passed by. Zanna did turn to look after a moment, frowning when she didn't see the girl anymore. They sat at a two person table to discuss Zanna's latest findings.

"Well, I just got one name, no details about the person. But it was Thane that triggered this one, by the name Marluxia."

"I can see how that would connect."

Pulling out a large paper, folded a few times, he showed her a drawing he'd had Thane make of the Organization's members. Looking it over, she was astounded to find that so many of the group's members looked just like the people on the paper.

"Can we copy this? I have some theories."

"Sure. I'll see if Thane will sketch you out a copy of it too."

After copying the sheet of fourteen people, one hooded and unclear as to their identity, Zanna started jotting down names and abilities over the heads of the people. She slid it around to show Isaac when she was done. He went over it, repeating softly what she'd written, laughing at a couple of her side comments.

"This does clear up some things, but our biggest question is where Xemnas is. Roxas should still be with Sora."

"Sora? The counselor?"

Isaac nodded. Zanna couldn't believe that their school counselor had somehow defeated the whole Organization, seeing as how her ability wasn't even at full strength, while he was a teenager. Apparently those keyblades that Isaac had mentioned were stronger than they appeared. Either that or there was something about Sora that she couldn't see. As she pondered what could possibly be different about the brown haired man, another memory clicked into place.

"That means your uncle . . ."

"Yeah, I used to harass him for information on the Organization all the time. He's got a lot of things he keeps somewhat secret from me though. Maybe we could talk to him after school, see if there's anything else we can get out of him."

"Sounds like a plan to me. My mother will be off doing who knows what for a while today anyways."

They continued their discussions about the Organization, catching Zanna up on what she hadn't known before, and simply needed to remember. It sometimes surprised him how quickly she picked it up, until he remembered that she probably already knew it, just had to remember it.

I/II/III/IV/V/VI/VII/VIII/IX/X/XI/XII/XIII/XIV

Walking out of the school after the last bell had rang; Roxas spotted a familiar shade of red hair, and turned to follow it, only to be pulled back by Naminé.

"You'll get your chance to talk to him later. For now, we have to keep an eye on Naxzan, she has the book."

The boy slumped in defeat, but glanced over his shoulder one last time with a wistful look on his face, wanting to talk to Axel again. He still allowed himself to be herded by the smaller girl though, knowing there was something far more important than talking to old friends. Even if those friends had been more than friends.

I/II/III/IV/V/VI/VII/VIII/IX/X/XI/XII/XIII/XIV

The two blondes did not go unnoticed though. Both Reno and Dylan had noticed the two, however in different ways. Dylan wondered who they were, and if they were some manner of exchange students, whereas Reno found himself obsessing over the blond boy. This frustrated him to no end, as he'd been raised to believe that the only acceptable pairings would be between a guy and a girl, nothing else. Even two girls together disgusted his parents, and by extension himself.

"Sorry Dylan, I know I said we'd hang out, but I have to do something at home . . . I totally forgot about it." He mumbled out as he quickly turned down a side street.

The guitarist looked oddly at his friend's retreating back and shrugged. Pulling out his cell phone, he called Devin and Mordy, to see if they were free to listen to his latest songs.

I/II/III/IV/V/VI/VII/VIII/IX/X/XI/XII/XIII/XIV

Unlocking the door, Isaac called out for his guardian, hoping he was home.

"Uncle Riku, are you here? We have some questions for you."

The two teens dumped their backpacks on the couch, and Isaac pulled out the Lexicon. They continued the search for Riku through the house, finally finding him in the shed where the broken down gummi ship sat. He was trying to get it working again, and it wasn't going well. Watching him work for a while, Isaac opened the tome to see if there was any entry in it about gummi ships. As he was reading, Riku looked up and jumped backwards in shock.

"Are you alright, Riku?" Zanna asked him, reaching out to him.

"Yeah, I'm fine, it's just that you guys . . . startled me, that's all." He lied.

Isaac's nose wrinkled briefly, and he looked at the man with mild censure. He said nothing though, and walked over to the broken ship. Looking briefly at the tome, he switched a few connectors around.

"There's some parts that you'll need replaced, but that should help." He murmured, walking back to where Zanna stood.

Riku nodded, he'd known there were parts that weren't working at all, and would have to be at the very least repaired, but the closed off look on his face spoke volumes. Isaac knew at this point that the man had known for a while that he was Zexion, and didn't tell him. The older man could also tell that his ward had figured out who he was, and that he'd known. Nothing was said; they just stood there looking at each other.

A whole conversation passed between the two without words, and without Isaac poking around in the man's brain. Riku had been scared to tell him, and in keeping it from him, he'd hurt the boy he'd come to think of as a son. Zanna looked from one to another often, but said nothing, knowing sometimes looks said more than words ever could. The tension lay over the trio, making her uncomfortable. She was beginning to become frustrated with the silence, and considered triggering a small flare of her ability, but decided that it would only irritate them. Instead, she worked on trying to recover more memories while they spoke wordlessly.

I/II/III/IV/V/VI/VII/VIII/IX/X/XI/XII/XIII/XIV

Locking himself in his room, Reno pulled out a false bottom to one of his desk drawers. Inside were well worn issues of some adult magazines, all labeled "barely legal". Intent on erasing that boy from his memory, he lay back on his bed and looked through them, focusing on the women's forms, flipping past any that looked too coltish or slender. Try as he might though, they didn't excite him.

"Fuck! What is wrong with me?" he growled as he dropped his head to the pillow behind him.

Screwing his eyes shut, he tried to focus on the girl that the boy had been with, but it didn't work, he couldn't even call to mind what she'd looked like or what she'd been wearing. He could remember every detail of the boy's clothes though, and even knew what he looked like, although he hadn't gotten a clear view of his face. The more he remembered of the boy though, the more uncomfortable he became. He repeatedly threw his head into the pillow, frustrated with these feelings he was having about a young boy.

"I refuse to prove that bitch right!" he hissed to himself, as he pulled open his door and ducked into his parent's room to grab a few of his father's magazines.

Looking around as though he were a spy on a secret mission, he tucked the magazines under his shirt and slid back to his room, once again locking the door. Grabbing a box of Kleenex from his desk, he was intent on not giving up. Pulling out the magazines, he sat with his back against his headboard, magazine in one hand. He settled on an image of a curvy brunette before setting out to prove that he could forget the boy.

"Roxanne, huh?" he muttered, looking at the name printed on the picture.

Smirking, he got down to it, and studied the image until he could tell you exactly how many dots per inch were used to make the picture seem real. He still hadn't proven anything though. He tossed that one to the floor, and picked up another, trying a redhead this time. This continued, magazine through magazine, blondes, brunettes, Asians, and so on. Falling back against the wall, exhausted, a single tear trailed back from the corner of his eye, as the realization hit him.

"I really do get off on young boys . . ." he whispered to himself.

The redhead closed his eyes once more, and the tears streamed down his face as he finally let go of his denial. Small hiccupping sounds came from his throat as the boy appeared in his mind again, turning to look at him, and smiling. As he sat there, quietly weeping over the loss of this particular determination, a weak smile crossed his face. Slowly, he started over again, where he'd failed with the magazines upon magazines of nude women; it came easy with the boy in his mind, fully clothed. Once finished, he slid down on his bed and curled up, facing away from the door, and fell asleep, a small smile on his face.


End file.
